Google SA this week hosted Launchpad Start, the tech giant's mentorship-driven start-up programme, for the first time in Johannesburg, in partnership with JoziHub.
This is the second of its kind in Africa; the first was held in Kenya last year and another will be held in Nigeria later this year, and the company hopes to make it a yearly event. Launchpad Start operates in 30 countries with over 600 mentors.
Early stage start-ups from Southern Africa were called to apply for the free five-day course.
John Kimani, developer ecosystem programme manager at Google, who heads up the Launchpad programme in Africa, says there were 170 applications and a strict elimination process was followed to get the chosen 20.
Applicants had to have identified a clear local problem and be working on it full time.
The 20 start-ups chosen to participate were: Adroyte, Brain Giga, Car Care Click, ComeFetch, Droppa, Esaja.com, EzyFind, Fresh Projects, HouseME, Intelligent Routing, Minderz, Mowash, Nubian Smarts, O-Yah, Pet Hero, Picadoo, Rooster Mornings, Sendr, Versofy and Vibescout.
The course provides start-ups with in-person mentoring to help tackle critical challenges and enable growth or scale.
Mentors for the Johannesburg programme were: Chris Grant, Silvia Calvet, Mich Atagana, Michael Stannard, Dr Jens Pippig, Monica Brand Engel, Andy Volk, Gerald Neves, Dale Humby, Itai Damti, John Kimani, David Troy, Aniedi Udo-Obong, Johann du Toit and Jamie Chennels.
Each day of the boot camp focused on a different skill with a specific target outcome at the end of the day. Google says by the end of the week, participants should come away with an improved product strategy, an optimised minimum viable product, a technical excellence plan and a viable digital marketing strategy.
Kimani says once the programme is over, Google will stay engaged with the start-ups and provide additional mentorship if needed.
Johannesburg to San Francisco
The next stage of the Launchpad programme is Google Launchpad Accelerator, where start-ups from around the world are selected to spend two weeks learning from Google at its Silicon Valley headquarters.
SA has been identified as one of the countries the tech giant will select applications from this year.
The programme is not for early stage businesses, but rather for tech start-ups that are ready to scale their companies.
Applications need to be submitted before 24 April. The form can be found here.
Only 20 start-ups will be selected from the chosen regions to take part in the boot camp in July. The start-ups will continue to receive support from Google until the end of the year.
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